Bridge to Teribithia: Some thoughts

If you haven't read Katherine Paterson's Newberry Medal Award-winning novel, The Bridge to Teribithia, you should pick it up sometime. If you're more the "see instead of read" type, you could take in the new movie now playing at the Cottonwood Theatres. I took my boys last Friday evening and let's just say... they loved it. It's fantasy, reality, life-struggle and heartache all rolled into one exciting drama. The whole movie makes you think, but one line in particular got me going...

...it was when Lindsay, one of the two main characters goes to church for the first time. She is driving home from church with her neighbor and soul-friend, Jesse. They are talking about what christians believe. Jesse's little sister is telling Lindsay that she will go to hell if she doesn't believe in Jesus. You can see that Jesse is uncomfortable with the conversation and doesn't want to tell Lindsay that she will go to hell. At the end of the conversation, Lindsay says something like, "It's funny that you grew up with all of these beliefs and you don't like it. I didn't grow up with any of it and I think it's beautiful."

Katherine Paterson, the author of the book is a follower of Christ - in fact, recently, I found a book at The BookMan that was a updated version of catechism written by her. I didn't buy it (doh!) and now wish I had... don't all go running there to steal it out from under me....

Her books have all sorts of Christian themes running throughout them - and the movie is no different. I am thinking of doing a re-read of the book soon because there are parts of the movie that "don't seem right". My kids agreed that changes had been made. I would like to see what the author's intents in the book were with regard to provoking thoughts on belief in Christ - and compare those to how Disney has altered those provoking thoughts.

All of this to get around to what Lindsay says in the back of the pickup truck. Do you think that if you grow up in Christianity that you don't see how beautiful it is? that you don't see it in the same way as someone who comes into it later in their life? (I think Lindsay is all of twelve years old, so that's not that much "later").

I've sometimes felt this way - that the beauty of Christ's love, his death, his resurrection is "old hat" or dwarfed in comparison to all the "shushing", "no running", "no touching the old woman's fur coat in front of you" that I experienced as a kid growing up in church.

What do you think? How is christianity beautiful to you - or something that doesn't seem so beautiful? Can we miss the beauty of it just because it's all so familiar?
If so, how do we find that beauty again?

sharon